Is my duck starting a nest?

[Babbette3741]

Hello! So every night my four welsh harlequins (two boys and two girls) go into a wooden house that I built for them and then I come along and lock them in. That means that they spend the whole night until about 6am on week days or 7am on weekends locked away. On August 16th one of my female ducks laid her first egg, since then I have got an egg a day, the egg is also always in the same spot. So a few days ago I was letting them out of their house, it was about 8:30 because I had slept late, and one of the ducks had created a large hole in the very front, up by the door. At first I thought one was bored or hungry and was digging for fun, but I left it alone just incase it was the start of a nest. There weren't really any new feathers in it, but the whole house is filled with their stray feathers so it would be hard to tell. Anyways, this morning I went to let them out about 7 and after everyone had left I went to collect the egg. I noticed two things at first, one, there was no egg, and two, the hole from yesterday was filled in. Now being the curious person I am, I moved the bedding in the hole over to see if maybe the egg was there, it was. I recovered it and left everything else alone. My ducks were hatched March 19th of 2012 by Purely Poultry. The house is filled with a few layers of straw and a lot of wood shavings btw.
Now that I've given you all the details, let's get to the questions
Do you think my duck is making a nest? I want ducklings really bad, so do you think she will go broody if I leave eggs? Also, what do I do about the other ducks? Will they bother her?
Thanks!

 

[larkflying]

I have Welsh Harlequins too! Your duck sounds like she is making a nest - mine covered their eggs when they were thinking about being broody. If she is, she'll keep adding eggs to the nest till it gets big enough to trigger her instinct to sit on them -- could be 10 eggs or more. As long as the temperatures are reasonable, the eggs will keep for a few weeks till she sits on them. When she sits on them all day and won't come out with the other ducks, you can start counting down days till they hatch -- I think it is somewhere on the 28th day or so, but I am sure that somewhere on here is more information about that.

I'd suggest, once she does go broody, that you take away any excess eggs until she has only about 8 to 10. My ducks just sat on random piles of eggs this year, and not many ducklings hatched because they were always sitting on a different part of the pile. Next year I'm going to take away eggs so they have a reasonable sized batch under them.

My other ducks always left the broody ducks alone. You'll just have to watch them and make sure. Usually the issues are when she hatches out any ducklings. You will need to block off the other ducks, especially the drakes, until you see how they are. Some drakes will kill ducklings. The other female duck might decide to go broody as well -- it was like dominos with my flock.

I'd also watch the remaining female and make sure that the boys aren't over breeding her. You could tell if she started acting more listless, or if there were missing feathers on her neck and body. She could be injured if they are -- my male ducks are very enthusiastic. If you can find them, more female ducks would help keep the two males from bothering any one duck too much.

Hope she keeps nesting - and

!